


too young to know about forever

by written_notes



Category: Odd Squad (TV)
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Pre-Relationship, creative license taken with Dr O's backstory, they're just tweens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:41:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28430301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/written_notes/pseuds/written_notes
Summary: “She keeps introducing herself to me every single time we meet!” It slips out from him unbidden, an irritation that has been at the forefront of his mind.“As in, ‘hi, I’m Dr O’?” Olive frowns in confusion.“Maybe she thinks you have amnesia.” Otto speculates, with a wide grin.
Relationships: Oscar/Dr O
Kudos: 6





	too young to know about forever

**Author's Note:**

> I just love this genius lab-coat wearing pair, especially after watching episodes 1.23b and 2.01 and watching how they work together!
> 
> Also, this show is both educational and hilarious!

“Hi, I’m Oscar!” He fumbles with his luggage.

“Toothbrushes are going for a quarter each.” The gift-shop girl points to the sign just above where his luggage stands.

“Ah, yes, well, I already have one, thanks.” He awkwardly runs a hand through his curly hair. 

“What’s next?” She shouts, and Oscar winces slightly.

He hopes she’s not going to hit him after hearing what he says. “Well, it seems, uh, that Ms O. is going to be… renovating the gift shop.”

She stares at him with a scarily intense look in her brown eyes, and he takes a step back a little fearfully. “Renovating?”

“Yes, uh, into a lab, I guess. For me to fix gadgets.” He holds up the un-picnic-inator that Owen passed to him earlier and waves it slightly.

“So, there won’t be a gift shop anymore.” She concludes, looking surprisingly apathetic. “Time to find a new job.”

Oscar realises she’s ripping off the jacket of her gift-shop uniform. “Yes! About that, Ms O. also said she has a new job for you.”

She pauses and turns around. “Really?”

“Yeah!” He beams, because really, isn’t Ms O. so kind and generous to be giving them all multiple chances and even creating new jobs for those who don’t fit into the status quo? “As a doctor!”

“A doctor?” She looks intrigued, but then her face falls. “But medicine’s difficult.”

It’s true, and the fact that she’s here manning the gift-shop instead of being one of the agents means she probably didn’t qualify for that either. But neither did Oscar, and Ms O. still has enough faith in him to keep him here in Headquarters. 

“If you managed to get through the Academy training then I’m sure you’ll be just fine.” He says encouragingly.

“You don’t even know me.” She points out, but there are the beginnings of a smile on her face, and she walks out of the gift shop before he can ask what her name is.

==

He’s on the way to the Break Room when he accidentally bumps into someone wearing a light blue lab coat.

“Ouch!” They both say at the same time. “I’m sorry!”

“Jinx!” Oscar chuckles as he dusts himself off and extends a hand to help before he realises the girl has already gotten up and is staring at him in something akin to horror.

“Sorry I wasn’t watching where I was going.” He says at the same time as her. Then he recognises her – it’s gift-shop girl, but now she’s wearing a lab coat and she must be the new Dr O whom Ms O. was talking about the other day.

“Oh, it’s you!” Now he frowns in confusion, because she’s just said the same thing as him. Again. “Wait a minute, how come we’re saying the same thing at the same time?” He gives a puzzled look, but clearly Dr O knows what’s up, based on her expression.

“We’ve got the Jinx!” She says angrily and slaps a hand to her forehead, while Oscar finds himself saying exactly what she says in unison. It’s very weird, having no control over it. “This is highly contagious. We need to isolate ourselves.”

Without further ado, she grabs him by the arm and drags him off to her clinic, where there’s an isolation room. “We’ll stay here so as not to spread it to others.”

Oscar opts to nod silently because the persistent sound of their combined voices is starting to give him a headache. “I’m Oscar, by the way.”

She nods. “I’m Dr. O. And as a doctor, I know the only way to cure this is to find the villain Jimmy Jinx and get his Jinx Cube.”

He shrugs. He’s sure she’s right – she says it with such confidence!

“I’ll call Ms O. and ask her for help.” She pulls off her badge phone and proceeds to do so, only pausing in the middle to duct tape his mouth so that the echo of their two voices in unison doesn’t become too noisy.

“Okay, she’s sent a couple of agents to help us get the Jinx Cube, so we just have to wait.” She informs him, and he realises his lips are still moving to pronounce the same syllables but under the duct tape.

Sighing, he rips off the duct tape despite the pointed look she gives him. “It’s really uncomfortable.” He explains.

“I suppose we can just keep quiet until they get the Cube.” She concedes.

He starts reading a medical book borrowed from her since they’re holed up in her office. “Wow, this is really complicated.” He can’t help but say.

“Of course it is.” She replies, a little defensively. “I’m a doctor.”

Oscar blinks. “O-kay.” He keeps silent for the rest of the afternoon, wondering what he did to make her so stand-offish.

==

He can’t believe they’ve been sent out on a mission. Weren’t there any other agents in the building who could do this? How desperate was Ms O. to be sending her resident scientist and doctor to go outside of headquarters and essentially beg a villain for help?

He can see that Dr O is equally jittery about the mission, which somehow makes him feel better. After the outbreak incident with the Noisemaker chocolates he’s kind of felt especially nervous around her. Although she’d fixed the noise outbreak very quickly, he couldn’t help but sense that she was particularly scornful of how silly he’d been. (He flinches when Noisemaker mentions it later in the Villains Estate.)

Seeing her uneasy initially makes him feel like they’re on even footing. But then he realises she still has the guts to make jokes while they’re in a dark alley looking for Baby Genius, and then to shout at him! Oscar wonders how she got so brave, and is glad that he wasn’t sent out on this mission alone. They make a pretty good team solving the word problems, and he can’t help but be grateful that so many people dislike Jimmy Jinx enough to give them all these hints.

What baffles him, however, is why she feels the need to keep reminding him that she’s a doctor. He didn’t think she was the type to keep bragging. But then she calls him a doctor after they’ve succeeded, and perhaps he’s earned her respect after all?

Well, whatever respect he thought he earned is lost the moment Ms O. sends them out on a mission in the park which involves an enormous laser chicken and him screaming in a most undignified manner. Thankfully they survive, but only because Agents Olive and Otto are sent in as backup, and Agent Olive specialises in laser chickens.

He fails to realise he sustained a burn on his arm after being hit by some lasered debris, until they’ve gotten back to headquarters and Dr O. points it out. 

“Come on, I have a salve for that.” She instructs him and immediately strides off towards the clinic, leaving him no choice but to follow her.

“Thanks. It’s not actually that painful- OW!” He gasps the moment he tries to take his lab coat off and the fabric brushes against the raw, burned skin.

Dr O takes his arm, surprisingly gentle, and carefully rolls up his burned shirt sleeve without scraping against the wound. He flinches as she cleans it first with some clear liquid and gauze, but then she takes out a jar and begins applying ointment, and his arm feels miraculously cool and not painful anymore.

“Wow, that stuff really works!” He beams at her.

“It should heal within a few hours.” She nods. “But perhaps we should avoid laser chickens for now.”

“Yeah, I don’t think I’m ready for this.” He admits, and then chuckles a little self-deprecatingly. “It really is a fitting catchphrase for me, I guess. Not really cut out for the whole outside mission stuff after all.”

“Hey.” Dr O reaches over and pats him on the non-injured arm. “I was only joking about the catchphrase during our previous mission because I thought jokes would make us less nervous.”

Oscar blinks in surprise. He thinks back to their previous mission, and he can see that thinking about a catchphrase had indeed distracted him from being too terrified.

“And just because we’re not ready to deal with laser chickens doesn’t mean we aren’t useful.” She continues firmly. “I’m a great doctor and you’re a great scientist. And maybe one day they’ll send us out on missions again and we’ll do just as good a job as we did with Jimmy Jinx.”

He didn’t realise she was so good at motivational speeches, almost as good as Olive! And maybe she was still a little snobby about the whole being-a-doctor thing, but she was being a good friend, and that’s what’s important. “You’re right. Thanks, Dr O.” He gives her an awkward pat on the shoulder before returning to his lab.

He doesn’t forget her words, and weeks later when Odd Todd steals his flip-floppinator, he decides to be brave and take on one of their worst enemies. He thinks he sees Dr O amongst the crowd of agents rocking out to ‘Oscar is Awesome’, and grins even more widely.

==

It’s been more than a year since he became President of the Scientists, and while he loves the part where he gets to teach the Academy trainees about how gadgets work, he misses being able to putter about in his little lab back at Headquarters trying to come up with new gadgets. So he decides to commandeer one of the labs in the Scientists Building, and secretly spends off time testing out new ideas.

Unfortunately, he’s a little out of practice, and ends up shooting a laser beam at his own leg. One of the interns finds him hopping about on one leg in pain. 

“Uh, Mr President, sir, maybe you should go and see a doctor.” The intern says as he pushes an office chair hurriedly so that Oscar can sit down and be wheeled out of the lab.

“But we don’t have a doctor here.” He flails his arms around a little, because this intern is pushing the chair very quickly. “And I’ve told you, please call me Oscar.”

“Actually, sir, there happens to be a visiting doctor here.” The intern informs him. “She’s part of the space station crew and this is her on-Earth resting period.”

“Oh, a space doctor?” Oscar was aware that they have a space station team, although he doesn’t personally know any of the agents there. “But if this is her resting period then we shouldn’t be creating more work for her. I’m sure my leg will be just fine- OW!”

The intern accidentally hit the chair against a wall and Oscar clutches at his leg. “I’m so sorry, sir! Let’s get you to the clinic!”

He practically races along the corridor, and Oscar seriously fears for his life, nearly forgetting the excruciating pain in his leg. Then the chair comes to a halt outside a room. The door opens as one of the scientists is leaving with a bandaged arm, and he can hear an oddly familiar voice inside shouting, “What’s next?”

It can’t be, he thinks. And sure enough, as he’s pushed in by the overeager intern, he sees none other but Dr O sitting there. She’s a little taller, but otherwise she looks almost exactly the same as before.

“Ah, Agent Oscar.” She sticks out a hand to greet him, and he’s rather gratified that she remembers him despite having not seen her for more than a year. “I’m Dr O. We used to work in the same headquarters, and we’ve gone on two missions together before. We both wear lab coats, although I’m a doctor and you’re not.”

That gratification turns to bewilderment. Does she think he’s an idiot or that he has some sort of amnesia? “Of course I know you, Dr O.”

“Ah, I see.” She withdraws her outstretched hand awkwardly, and Oscar belatedly realises he should have shaken her hand, but now it’s too late. “What seems to be the problem?”

“I, uh, hurt my leg while I was in the lab. A laser beam sort of ricocheted. And then I nearly smashed into a wall just now on this chair.” Now that he’s gotten over the shock of seeing her again, the throbbing pain in his leg seems amplified, and his face scrunches up.

She bends down to inspect the nasty wound on his leg. The thing is, the pain feels deeper than the wound looks. “Let’s get an X-ray. But first, take this.” She hands him a bright pink pill. “It’s a painkiller.” 

He dry swallows it gratefully before she wheels him off to the X-ray room. It turns out he has a fracture on his shin bone, and while she can fix the wound, she informs him he’ll need to wear a cast for a couple of weeks and then repeat the X-ray.

“Thanks, Dr O. I guess I’ll be using the jetpack to get around.” He sighs. Then he realises she hasn’t shouted her usual catchphrase – probably because the makeshift clinic is empty. “How have you been this past year?”

“I’ve been in space. A doctor, in space.” She informs him. “It was… out of this world.”

He breaks into a grin at her joke. “It’s amazing that you got to go to space.” He marvels. “Your parents must be so proud.”

She frowns slightly. “I don’t have parents.”

His eyes widen and he nearly slaps a hand over his big mouth. “You- you don’t?”

She points to her desk name plate, which is really just a piece of paper that has ‘Dr O’ written on it. “The ‘O’ is for orphan.”

He slumps back in his chair. This conversation is just getting worse and worse. “O-orphan? I thought it was, you know, your name.”

She lifts a brow. “I wasn’t always a doctor. Obviously I wasn’t born with the name ‘Dr O’. But my name doesn’t actually start with an O, so I didn’t have much choice.” 

“So…what name were you born with?” He asks tentatively, hoping that all this talk about her lack of parents isn’t causing her grief. She seems quite matter-of-fact about the whole thing.

To his dismay, she shrugs. “I don’t know. I don’t really know anything about my birth.”

“Not even your birthday?” He blurts out. People in Odd Squad generally made a big deal out of birthdays. In fact, Otto was going to invite him to his birthday party soon. 

“I don’t have a birthday.” She shrugs again. “Less hassle, really. Anyway, as I said earlier, you need to go and rest your leg, and I’ll see you in two weeks’ time.”

“Right.” He nods promptly, wanting to abandon this awkward situation as quickly as possible. Then he realises the problem. “Uh, could you give me a hand and open the door so I can wheel myself out?”

“Of course.” She goes over to open the door, and then watches as he struggles to manoeuvre the wheelchair she has lent to him and takes an entire minute to get out through the door. Oscar then realises she’s started pushing the wheelchair for him, and he allows his arms to relax. “I’ll get you back to your room if you give me directions.” 

==

“What happened to your leg?” Olive gapes as Oscar limps into the ice-cream café wearing a clunky boot with straps on it.

“Uh, I had a little accident in the lab.” He replies, shuffling clumsily into one of the colourful chairs. “Dr O says I need to wear it for a month. It’s a lot better than the cast, though. Less itchy.”

Oprah gives the boot a sharp tap as if to test its durability, and Oscar jerks his leg back with a slightly frightened look, although he doesn’t say anything. She is the Big O, after all. “Did you say Dr O?”

“Yes, from our old precinct!” He beams. “She’s on a break from the space station and she just so happened to be at the Academy when I had my accident.”

Otto pushes a banana split towards Oscar, who thanks him and begins slicing the banana into little pieces with his spoon. They don’t always have time to meet up, so when they do, they make sure to have good food. “How is she? We haven’t seen her in ages.”

Oscar hesitates for a moment. How much of what Dr O has told him is he allowed to tell others? They’ve met up for consultations and lunch these past few weeks, and after the number of conversations they’ve had, he’s learned a lot more about her than he thinks the others ever knew. “She keeps introducing herself to me every single time we meet!” It slips out from him unbidden, an irritation that has been at the forefront of his mind.

“As in, ‘hi, I’m Dr O’?” Olive frowns in confusion.

“Maybe she thinks you have amnesia.” Otto speculates, with a wide grin.

“How many times have you met?” Oprah narrows her eyes.

“There’s nothing wrong with my memory.” Oscar grumbles good-naturedly. “And we’ve met at least three times!”

“Oh, I should invite her to my birthday party! It’ll be like a mini reunion.” Otto exclaims and pulls out an invitation and hands it to Oscar. The scientist blinks in surprise but nods and stuffs it into his lab coat pocket. 

“I wonder what it must have been like on the space station.” Olive muses, absentmindedly stirring her sundae. “Surrounded by all that darkness and looking down at Earth, where everyone else was going about their daily lives.”

“And then coming back and wondering how everyone has moved on while you were away.” Otto continues almost seamlessly, earning a nod from Olive. Oscar experiences a fleeting sense of longing to have a partner who understands him the way Olive and Otto understand each other.

Olive gets that look in her eye, the same one when she and Otto used to be regular agents stumped with a hard problem. “Do you think she introduces herself because she thinks people have forgotten her?”

“But…she used to do the same thing when we were all working together.” Oscar feels the need to point out. “And she definitely isn’t forgettable.”

“Maybe her parents taught her to introduce herself frequently.” Otto jokes.

“Dr O doesn’t have parents.” Oscar blurts out again, and nearly slaps a hand over his big, big mouth. What was he thinking?

Olive gasps quietly. “Oh dear.”

Oprah fixes him with an intense look. “She told you about that?” Her incredulity is reasonable, since no one would have thought Oscar to be close friends with Dr O.

Oscar nods apologetically, but realises this means the former Ms O already knew all this. Thankfully the conversation takes a turn to another topic after this, before Oscar can unwittingly share more personal information about Dr O than he means to.

==

Otto’s birthday party is a blast, with good food, a rock-climbing competition, and a special appearance by Soundcheck, sending the birthday boy into spasms of delight. Dr O had seemed quite bewildered to receive an invitation, but Oscar had persuaded her to come along, and he thinks the reunion was great!

“I didn’t expect to be invited to any birthday parties.” Dr O confides in him one day during lunch in the Academy cafeteria. He has been having lunch more frequently with her since he knows she’s due to return to the space station soon. 

“Well, that’s because you were away for so long, no one even knew you were back.” Oscar smiles reassuringly. “And everyone was glad you came, it was a lot of fun!”

Dr O looks a little disbelieving, but Oscar just keeps nodding reassuringly, kind of like a bobble-head, until Dr O gives in and gives a tiny smile back. “I didn’t think people would remember me.” She admits quietly.

Oscar has had some time to think about it, and he thinks he knows better now. “You don’t seem to have a very high opinion of yourself.” He ventures tentatively.

She gives him a startled look. 

“Back at the precinct, you used to keep reminding us who you are, and that you’re a doctor. I used to think you were being a little snobby, then I remembered when you used to work at the gift-shop.” He notices her cheeks flushing pink, but she hasn’t stormed off nor punched him, so he decides to continue. “And now I think you kept introducing yourself because you didn’t think you were memorable, and you had to assert your value based on your skill set.”

Her face falls slightly, and his heart sinks to his stomach, worried that he’s hurt her or damaged their friendship. “I felt easily replaceable back then, working in the gift-shop.” She admits. “But after I worked hard and became a doctor, I thought, ‘now I’m indispensable’. They need me, even if they aren’t my friends.”

“I thought we were friends, especially after our mission for the Jinx.” Oscar replies simply. “I’m sure the others feel the same.”

“Thanks, Oscar.” Her lips curve up in a real, wide smile, and now there’s a weird fluttery feeling in the pit of his stomach. Was it something he ate?

“So, uh, how long will you be gone?” He awkwardly changes the topic. 

“Well, the age limit is sixteen, so I guess I’ll be there until then. They let us take a break every 6 months or so, though.”

He nods, slightly disappointed that she sounds like she won’t be on Earth most of the time. “Well, when you do come back please let us know so we can meet up again. There’s no shortage of accidents at the Academy – we could always use a doctor here. And…I could use having another friend around.”

“Of course.” She sticks out her hand, overly formal, but this time he shakes it without hesitation, ignoring the tiny spark at the point of skin-to-skin contact.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write more about their relationship as they grew older, but perhaps leaving it as friendship is more true to the tone of the show?
> 
> I might add an extra chapter about how they meet again and go to university together...


End file.
